About

Michael was raised in a creative household. When he was little, his mother made and decorated all of his clothes. As he grew older, she began working with ceramics until he was in his late teens. This creativity definitely had an impact on him. Michael is well known to be an animated individual and so he took his theater classes starting in the 6th grade which he continued taking through graduation, in May of 1992 from New Braunfels High School.

Michael took his first photography class at Southwest Texas State University (now called Texas State University) in Spring of 1993. He learned his basics. He worked hard on making sure he understood lighting, posing, and camera angles. He strove to be the best that he could be then as he still does so today. This is something that he learned from his father who worked hard to support his family for almost 35 years with the LCRA (Lower Colorado River Authority). He retired from the LCRA at 34 & 1/2 years because they wanted him to start carrying a laptop, cell phone, and a page (this was in 1994). When he was told this, his response was pretty much as follows: “I think I’ll be taking early retirement now, thank you.” When Michael’s father did retire, they had to get not one but two (2) people to replace him in order to do the quality and volume of work that he had always done. You see, Michael’s father always made sure things were done right and that they were done that way the first time.

Making sure it is done right the first time is something that Michael strongly believes in. He knows the limits of image manipulation programs such as photoshop so he works hard to capture the images properly, with the correct lighting, posing, exposure, etc the first time so that no reshoots are necessary. He has studied with people that do retouching for magazines to billboards as well as those who have photographed the Hollywood Elite, world leaders, and royalty as well. He knows how to light, pose, and retouch people so that they can look their best without making them look like someone else.

Basically, if you want to look your best in your portraits, Michael is the “go to” man for that.